This month Alabama passed a law banning abortions at any time period with no exceptions for rape or incest, only when the mother's health is at risk. Two other states – Ohio and Mississippi – have passed similar legislation, which also do not include exceptions for rape or incest. Georgia passed a bill banning abortions after six weeks and includes the exceptions, but requires an official police report alleging the crimes (research shows 3 out of every 4 sexual assaults are not reported, and out of every 1,000 rapes only five perpetrators are convicted). INTERACTIVE MAP: Where is abortion legal? Debate over the exceptions has dominated headlines and ignited Twitter wars.

It’s been 73 days since Sarah Huckabee Sanders last held a “daily” White House press briefing. For the most part, she has chosen to bring the Trump administration’s message to Fox News and Fox News only. But on Thursday morning she stepped out of her comfort zone and was quickly reminded what it feels like to be questioned by a real reporter. Sanders’ interview with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on New Day started out all smiles as the two women exchanged pleasantries. But as soon as the host began to dig in on President Trump’s ultimatum to Democrats in Congress that he will not work with them on infrastructure until they stop investigating him, things went south.Alisyn Camerota Loves Doing Journalism at CNN, After Doing the Opposite at Fox News“Congress say they can do two things at once, the Democrats is Congress say this isn't a problem,” Camerota said. “So is the president saying that he cannot do infrastructure while he's being investigated?” “I think it’s a complete lie that Democrats in Congress think they can do two things at once,” Sanders replied. “So far we haven't seen them do anything. Nancy Pelosi has had the majority in the House for months and is yet to accomplish a single thing. They literally haven’t gotten anything done since she took over.” When Camerota pointed out that since January, the House has passed 248 bills and the Senate has passed 161, Sanders laughed it off as insignificant. “I just want to say, it's the president who is saying that he can't do infrastructure while he's being investigated,” Camerota reiterated. “He is the one who walked out of the meeting. So just so that we're clear, he's saying that bridges are not going to be fixed until he's no longer investigated, is that what we hear from the White House?” Instead of answering that question, Sanders stammered a bit as she once again accused Democrats of being “incapable of doing anything other than investigating this president.”“They spend all of their time attacking him and the fact that they would have a meeting an hour before they are set to arrive at the White House where Nancy Pelosi literally accuses the president of a crime and then wants to walk into his office and sit down as if nothing happened, that's just—that's lunacy,” she continued. “That's not even in the realm of possibility. The president absolutely wants to get infrastructure done, he wants to secure our border, he wants to do things that help our veterans, he wants to improve our education system, he wants to do all of those things but Democrats have been unwilling to work with him.”Fox News' Chris Wallace Shuts Down Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ Claim About Terrorists Crossing BorderLater, after confirming that Trump’s “merit-based” immigration plan will not prioritize DREAMers, Sanders returned to her attacks on Pelosi for suggesting the president may have committed a crime. “That would be like John telling you that he thought you were stealing from the network and then sitting down in the chair next to you and saying, but no big deal, let's just move forward,” she said, referring to Camerota’s co-host John Berman. “John would never accuse me of something like that,” Camerota said with a smile. “I would hope not,” Sanders added. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Army engineers say two runaway barges did "minimal" damage when they struck an Arkansas River dam. The barges, filled with 1,500 tons of fertilizer, swept down the flood-swollen river and hit the Webbers Falls Lock and Dam about noon Thursday and sank. Town officials in the riverfront town of Webbers Falls had warned residents to flee for fear such a collision would catastrophically breach the dam and flood the town.

President Donald Trump is defending his unprecedented decision to give his Justice Department chief unfettered access to the country's deepest foreign intelligence secrets amid an outcry from the spy community and a veiled warning from the US intelligence czar. The president said Attorney General Bill Barr needed unilateral power to declassify any top secret material to get to the roots of the 2016-2018 investigation into whether his election campaign colluded with Russia. Barr "will be able to see how this hoax, how the hoax or witch hunt started, and why it started," Trump said.

If you've got Touch Bars on the brain but you've been unwilling to cough up the extra cash to get one, today is your lucky day. Amazon is running a one-day Gold Box deal on renewed MacBook Pro with Touch Bar models, and the prices are crazy. This product has been tested and certified to work and look like new, with minimal to no signs of wear, by a manufacturer or specialized third-party seller approved by Amazon.

Simulator training remains a "possible option" for Canadian Boeing 737 MAX pilots, but it's too early to say whether it would be mandatory, a Transport Canada official said on Thursday night, further distancing the regulator from previous remarks by the country's transport minister. "It would be premature not seeing what Boeing has fully proposed yet to determine if simulator training will in fact be included," said Nicholas Robinson, the regulator's director general, civil aviation, told reporters on a conference call following a meeting of global regulators in Texas. Canada's Transport Minister Marc Garneau called in April for pilots to received simulator training for Boeing's software fix.

Facebook has been accused of leaving 'broken children' as collateral damage in the wake of their commercial aims, the child sex abuse inquiry has heard. Barrister William Chapman, representing the victims of abuse at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), said social media companies were not preventing paedophiles reaching children as it was “contrary to their business model” and that their apps needed to be “fundamentally redesigned”. Police also warned that tech firms were going ahead with plans to encrypt more features "in the certain knowledge" it would lead to more children being abused.

A federal judge on Friday issued a strongly worded preliminary injunction blocking Mississippi's "heartbeat" abortion law, that would have banned abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, when a fetal heartbeat is detected. U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves' order will combine the lawsuit against Mississippi's fetal heartbeat ban with an ongoing one against the state's previous 15-week abortion ban. "Mississippi has passed another law banning abortions prior to viability.

For progressive presidential candidates in 2020, there is perhaps no greater prize than earning the endorsement of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The 29-year-old freshman phenom, who has helped guide her party to the left with platforms like the Green New Deal and has built a social media following dwarfing that of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has not chosen a candidate in the huge field seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. “I will support whoever the Democratic nominee is,” Ocasio-Cortez told Yahoo News' “Skullduggery” podcast last month, but she singled out Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., for praise.

An outbreak of nasty storms spawned tornadoes that razed homes, flattened trees and tossed cars across a dealership lot, injuring about two dozen people in Missouri's capital city and killing at least three others elsewhere in the state. The National Weather Service confirmed that a large and destructive twister moved over Jefferson City shortly before midnight Wednesday. The tornado cut a path about 3 miles long and a mile wide from the south end of Jefferson City north toward the Missouri River, said police Lt. David Williams.

Key Developments:May will inform her advisers Friday morning of the day she plans to stand down, the FT reportedMay’s Brexit legislation isn’t listed for debate in the first week of June as promised, but the government says it still hopes to put it to Parliament that weekEU elections are under way. The prime minister will meet with her advisers at 10 a.m. to reveal her decision and will also meet Graham Brady, chairman of the rank and file 1922 Committee, it said. May appeared determined to re-write her Withdrawal Agreement Bill to make it palatable to her party when she met with Home Secretary Sajid Javid, according to a person familiar with the discussion.

Oman said Friday it was trying to reduce spiralling tensions between the Unites States and Iran, as the Pentagon confirmed it was considering deploying more troops to the region. The small but strategically located sultanate, which faces Iran across the highly sensitive Strait of Hormuz at the entrance to the Gulf, has maintained good relations with Tehran throughout successive regional crises. "We and other parties seek to calm tensions between Washington and Tehran," Muscat's state minister for foreign affairs Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah said in a statement.

Global tech firms, including chip suppliers, are cutting ties with China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd after the U.S. government put the world's largest telecom equipment maker on a trade blacklist citing national security concerns. The United States has effectively banned its companies from doing business with Huawei, exacerbating an ongoing Sino-U.S. trade war. Huawei is allowed to buy U.S. goods until Aug. 19 to maintain existing telecoms networks and provide software updates to its smartphones.

In a stunning escalation of the Trump administration's war on the press, the Justice Department has indicted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for revealing government secrets under the Espionage Act. The charges invoke broad provisions of the Espionage Act that make it a crime to disclose or retain any defense information knowing it “could be used to injure” the U.S. The act has no exception for reporters or publishers, but prior administrations have balked at invoking the law against journalists for fear of colliding with the First Amendment.

Buying a first-generation Land Rover Discovery used to be cheap. The Land Rover Discovery has endured hard times in the used car marketplace. As the Range Rover Classic has quickly become one of the most desirable, sought after and expensive collector cars on the planet, those of more rational or 'peasant status' have turned to the humbled Discovery in search of everyday practicality with up-coming collector car status.

If you're an AT&T mobile customer, and you have some extra bitcoin lying around that you're not doing anything with, you can now use it to pay your phone bill. AT&T just became the first big US wireless carrier to announce that its customers can now use cryptocurrency to make payments, as greater acceptance of this digital medium of exchange can be seen at companies ranging from AT&T to cable provider Dish, which also lets its customers pay via cryptocurrency. Likewise, Facebook on Friday garnered headlines over a report that it's set to launch its own cryptocurrency for use on the social network early next year.

While abortion is legal nationwide, Americans have unequal access to the procedure, depending on their location in the United States and how much they are able to spend. The disparities are great indeed, from the more than 150 abortion clinics available in the most populous state of California, to only one in states like Mississippi in the South or Missouri in the Midwest. State laws also vary widely on other matters like speed limits for drivers and marriage age requirements, but the Supreme Court has set a "minimum standard throughout the entire country," noted Meg Penrose, of the Texas A&M School of Law.

Prominent Trump critic George Conway on Thursday posted a picture of President Trump's $35,000 check to his former lawyer Michael Cohen, along with a quote from Trump's Wednesday press conference: “I don't do cover-ups. Cohen has testified that the check was partial reimbursement for the $130,000 he paid actress Stormy Daniels as hush money to cover up a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump. The money changed hands shortly before the 2016 election and was part of the evidence in Cohen's plea deal with federal prosecutors that resulted in his prison sentence.

The Indian National Congress Party went from understated optimism to shellshocked defeat within the space of a few hours on Thursday as Narendra Modi and his party celebrated another landslide victory. For the Congress leader, Rahul Gandhi, the performance by his party was nothing short of a humiliation, with several members of his own party demanding he step down and lay the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to rest for good. Mr Gandhi suffered the sting of losing the iconic seat of his family homestead in Amethi, Uttar Pradesh, which he had held since 2004 and was controlled by his father before him. He won in his second constituency – candidates can run from two in India – but the symbolism of the defeat was one from which he may never recover. Modi vowed to build an 'inclusive' India after a first term marred by accusations of fomenting religious hatred Credit: AFP At a brief press conference as the results were still coming in, Mr Gandhi congratulated Mr Modi and said “the people are king and they have directed that the BJP and Modi have won this election”. He added: “I don't want to get into what went wrong today, this is not the time for that. I fully respect the Indian people's decision.” During the briefing he also conceded defeat in the Amethi election and congratulated his opponent Smriti Irani, of the BJP, who was more than 28,000 votes ahead at the time. Congress party officials did not return calls by The Telegraph but there were widespread reports in Indian media that the party had wildly miscalculated the margin of any potential loss with its internal polling, and now all that was left was to call for its talisman's head. “If they want to change anything, change the leadership,” a Congress official in Rajasthan told Reuters, referring to Mr Gandhi and the party's high command. “You need to give young people a chance.” However Mr Gandhi, 48, will probably not face an immediate leadership challenge as India's establishment party does some soul searching after an inglorious defeat. Some reports claimed Mr Gandhi had offered to resign. “According to sources, Sonia Gandhi and senior Congress leaders advised him to bring up the matter before the party forum,” reported India Today TV. “The CWC (Congress Working Committee) will meet in a week in which the proposal will be discussed,” it added. Ironically the youthful pretender had grown into his role as leader in the past 18 months after previously being seen as a reluctant heir to his political lineage which stretched back to India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. He campaigned vigorously and was not shy on calling out Mr Modi on the economy, national security, Hindu nationalism and women's rights. After a while the media started to take notice. However behind the scenes his inability to foster good relations with a host of regional party leaders that could have generated a tenable anti-Modi alliance may have damaged his chances. "The BJP fought these elections on the basis of social and religious divisive policies and the agenda was set by them on this basis," said Atul Kumar Anjaan, national secretary of the Communist Party of India, a potential ally. "But more significant is the fact that the unity of the opposition has been damaged by the Congress. The policies and decisions of Rahul Gandhi has weakened opposition unity, led to divisions and opened the doors for Modi's victory.” Congress has ruled India for most of its history since independence from Britain in 1947, and boasts three prime ministers from the Nehru-Gandhi clan. But its weak performance in the last two elections seems to suggest it needs a drastic change of direction to take on someone with Mr Modi's political savvy.

JPMorgan Chase & Co has cut ties with Purdue Pharma LP over the OxyContin maker's alleged role in the U.S. opioid crisis, forcing it to find a new bank to manage cash and bill payments, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday. The move makes JPMorgan, the largest U.S. bank by assets, the most high-profile corporation known to have distanced itself from Purdue and its wealthy owners, the Sackler family, amid thousands of lawsuits alleging the company pushed addictive painkillers while downplaying their abuse and overdose risks. JPMorgan's decision also underscores a drive among U.S. banks to reassess their relationships with clients and industries in response to controversy and political debates over matters such as immigration detention and mass shootings.

Alabama lawmakers abruptly adjourned after one lawmaker called for the censure of another over comments that included calling the president's son "evidently retarded." Republican Rep. Arnold Mooney of Shelby County on Wednesday went to the House microphone to read a letter seeking censure of Rep. John Rogers, a Democrat. Mooney said Rogers brought "shame" on Alabama with comments he made after debate on a proposed abortion ban.